‘‘ By re­view­ing bac­te­ria lev­els at beaches over time, Lawa al­lows us to as­sess to what ex­tent the wa­ter at our beaches is af­fected by bac­te­ria and whether this poses a health risk to the pub­lic,’’ he said.

Based on the last three years of en­te­ro­cocci data, Walker said that the majority of mon­i­tored beaches were suit­able for swimming.

‘‘ Sixty- four per cent of mon­i­tored beaches are clas­si­fied as hav­ing a low or very low risk of caus­ing in­fec­tion or ill­ness. Four­teen per cent are clas­si­fied as high risk and the re­main­der are within ac­cept­able lim­its.’’

As well as the sea­sonal guide, Lawa also pro­vides the re­sults of the most re­cent weekly beach mon­i­tor­ing, al­low­ing users to see the lat­est bac­te­ria read­ing and how this might af­fect cur­rent suit­abil­ity for swimming.

‘‘Even a low risk beach can be un­suit­able to swim at from time to time and we rec­om­mend that you avoid swimming for 48 hours after heavy rain­fall.’’

He also ad­vised peo­ple to re­mem­ber Lawa pro­vides in­for­ma­tion on wa­ter qual­ity but other haz­ards may be present.

‘‘Our nat­u­ral en­vi­ron­ment is a great play­ground but can be un­pre­dictable. Peo­ple need to be aware of the other po­ten­tial risks such as rips or cur­rents be­fore jumping in.’’

Lawa was de­vel­oped by New Zealand re­gional and uni­tary coun­cils, the Min­istry for the En­vi­ron­ment and the Cawthron In­sti­tute with the support of the Tin­dall Foun­da­tion to pro­vide New Zealan­ders with more ac­ces­si­ble in­for­ma­tion about nat­u­ral re­sources.

The web­site was launched in March with in­for­ma­tion on river wa­ter qual­ity at over 1110 sites around the coun­try.

‘‘ Peo­ple want to know more about what’s go­ing on in their en­vi­ron­ment and the re­sponse to the river data avail­able on Lawa has been re­ally pos­i­tive,’’ said Fran Wilde, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment New Zealand Re­gional Sec­tor Group Chair.

‘‘It’s great to be able to build on the in­for­ma­tion avail­able and move into the marine en­vi­ron­ment and we’re ex­cited to pro­vide beach in­for­ma­tion on Lawa in time for sum­mer when our beaches are at their busiest,’’

Wilde said work on other en­vi­ron­men­tal in­di­ca­tors for Lawa was on­go­ing and the web­site would even­tu­ally show in­for­ma­tion on wa­ter quan­tity, air qual­ity, land and bio­di­ver­sity, as well as more fresh and coastal wa­ter qual­ity data.

Lawa will also con­trib­ute to a new na­tional en­vi­ron­men­tal re­port­ing regime be­ing de­signed by the Min­istry for the En­vi­ron­ment and Statis­tics New Zealand.